


Where You Lead My Heart Will Go

by adevyish



Category: One Direction (Band), Political RPF - UK 20th-21st c.
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Politics, M/M, Meet-Cute, Politician Louis Tomlinson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 03:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12448392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adevyish/pseuds/adevyish
Summary: Louis Tomlinson falls for a boy and ends up MP for Doncaster North. Oops.





	Where You Lead My Heart Will Go

**Author's Note:**

> This fic’s existence is entirely the fault of theweightofjupiter and her [One Parliament tag](http://theweightofjupiter.tumblr.com/tagged/one-parliament). As I began writing this around April 2014 and worked on it through May 2015, this is an AU where certain political events never happened, notably Corbyn’s leadership and Brexit and the resulting election. Tyfyt.
> 
> Title from Pet Shop Boys’ “Bolshy”.

(2015, April.)

Louis _hates_ photo ops. He’s Labour to his bones, but he doesn’t need any politician visiting _his_ classroom and distracting _his_ kids from examining pond scum in microscopes. His kids are adorable, granted, so Louis understands why his local MP who also happens to be the beleaguered leader of the Labour Party leader might want to take some photos with his kids. But he feels protective. He doesn’t need some Londoner to pretend to care about Donny for five seconds by visiting _his_ school.

To worsen Louis’ annoyance, the hubbub has distracted his kids all day. The head teacher is obsessed with ensuring their primary looks shiny and perfect and attractive to prospective parents, even though—especially as—they only have five seconds in the spotlight. Zayn, smart man that he is, has escaped to parts unknown. Louis, however, has a class in half an hour and can only dodge the mob of aides and hacks by squirrelling away in the staff bathroom.

He’s been washing his hands for more than a minute when he hears the sound of retching. It isn’t a Monday or Friday morning so he doubts it’s a hangover. He finds the stall the noise is coming from, and knocks. “You alright?”

He hears a small shuffle. “If you need help,” he says, “give a shout, yeah?”

A rustle comes from the other side of the door. “’M good,” says an unknown voice, timid and slightly strained.

The lock clicks and the door inches open. Louis’ first thought is that the bathroom is too drab a backdrop for the most beautiful face he has ever lain eyes on.

“Oh, um.” says the mystery man. “Could you please pretend that didn’t happen?”

Louis follows the movement of the man’s startlingly red lips as it moves in a nervous bite.

“I’d shake your hand,” the man says. “But.” He makes a awkward gesture that Louis takes to mean germs.

Louis thinks it might be wrong that he is already completely enamoured by someone he’d just met in a bathroom, especially someone who’d just vommed. He gives the man his Encouraging The Kids smile, and says, “Take your time, yeah?”

The man returns his smile, and it is like gazing at roses in full bloom. Louis tries to stay cool and not stare at the man’s dimples in the mirror.

The man ducks his head shyly. “Can we pretend we met like this?”

Louis, who has been entirely too caught up in gazing at the man’s neck, replies very smartly. “Huh?”

“At the vanity washing hands,” the man clarifies.

“Oh,” Louis says. “Sure.”

Louis rocks back lightly on his feet, then walks softly until he’s an arm’s length from the attractive stranger. “Hi,” he says, reaching out his hand.

The man moves to reciprocate, but instead his elbow meets the corner of the sink. “Oops,” he says, pouting at his elbow as if it were responsible for a baby kitten crying. The man turns the pout on Louis, and Louis wonders what he has ever done to deserve this. “ _Hi_ ,” the man says, dragging the vowel into a song note. “Harry Styles.”

Louis finds it in himself to reply casually. “Louis Tomlinson.”

“So,” Harry Styles says, “what do you do at this fine establishment, Louis?”

 _You_ , Louis almost replies, but managed to reign himself in by virtue of being an Actual Teacher For A Couple Of Years Now. “Teacher,” he says. “You?”

“I’m, um, an aide. With Ed Miliband. From Labour,” Harry says, blush high on his cheeks yet somehow utterly charming. Louis would have never guessed he’d been hurling vom a mere minute earlier.

“Thank you for your fine work,” Louis says, using the excuse of giving a compliment to put a one-hundred-percent laddish hand on the other man’s shoulder. Louis wasn’t known as Mankiller Tommo at MMU for nothing. “New to the job, then?” he asks.

Harry tucks a curl behind his ear. “Is it that obvious?”

Louis brings up his hand beside his face with his pointer and thumb squeezed together. “Just a little bit.”

Harry ducks his head the slightest inch. “I’ll trust your expert judgement.”

“Want to know a secret?” Louis asks. He leans in to whisper dramatically and not at all flirtatiously, nope. “We’re all cheering you on.”

Harry’s face lights up, deep dimples forming on his cheeks. “Thank you,” Harry says.

Louis leans back. “So, if there’s anything you need,” he says. He raises an eyebrow and gives his best flirtatious-not-flirtatious pose.

Harry raises both eyebrows. “Your phone number?”

Louis teases finger into Harry’s lapel. “Are you sure you should be giving out your phone number during working hours?”

“I won't tell if you won’t,” Harry says.

(If every now and then someone points out they did, in fact, pick each other up during working hours, it is what it is.)

*

In the days since they met, Louis has managed a few texts with Harry. As one participant is an aide to A Very Important Person, ninety-percent of their conversations consist of emojis and kitten photos. Louis doesn’t mind, but he wants to know more about what Harry—what he does, what he likes, what he wants.

Somehow, this has meant that Louis’ phone is suddenly filled with the politics pages of the Guardian and the Indy, and, to his shame, even the Times.

“What are you looking at?” Zayn asks.

Louis quickly taps his home button. “Nothing,” he says, completely unconvincingly.

Zayn gives him a look of outright disbelief, and quickly moves to grab Louis’ phone before Louis can lock it. He perches on the arm of the sofa, looking infuriatingly like a retro advert, while calmly scrolling through Louis’ phone. “You read the papers now?”

“Thought I should start keeping up with the kids,” Louis says.

Zayn’s look of disbelief only strengthens. “You’re too caught up in your age to joke about that,” he points out. Louis absolutely detests having a best friend.

“I was reading the news,” Louis says, mulishly.

Zayn locks the phone. “Who’s the shadow Justice minister?”

Louis is surprised he even knows the answer to that. “Sadiq Khan.” Just to be a knob, he adds, “You think so little of me.”

Zayn makes his ‘I don’t buy your bullshit, Louis’ face. (Louis first learned of this face in uni when he’d stumbled home at five am, accidentally woke Zayn, and tried to give his best excuses to his then-new flatmate.) “Mate,” Zayn says. “I’ve mentioned him before and you totally glazed over.”

“Oops.”

“So,” Zayn says, placing the phone down on the coffee table. He brings his feet up onto the sofa and leans towards Louis. “What’s up?"

Louis puts his right hand to his heart and tries to look as dramatically sincere as possible. “Can’t a man partake in his civil duty?”

“Civic,” Zayn mutters. He says, louder, “You’d vote the same way short of the Labour Party being replaced by clones of Farage and Michael Gove, and you don’t follow politics _except_ to rant about Michael Gove.”

Louis says nothing.

“Is it a boy?”

Louis most definitely says nothing. Sadly, that was when his phone decides to betray him by buzzing. Louis scrambles for it, but being closer and less enveloped by the sofa Zayn easily scoops it up.

“This your boy? Blue heart pink heart all caps H-A-Z yellow heart green heart?” Zayn asks with fake stoicism. Best friend or not Louis was going to push into the River Don come first snow.

“You’re not getting it back until you tell me,” Zayn adds. Traitor.

Louis’ woeful need to read Harry’s text quickly overrides any remnants of his shredded pride. “I met him at that Labour photo op thing,” he admits. “The one you skipped.”

“He’s in politics,” Zayn says, with only the slightest hint of judgement. For the hundredth time, Louis is forced to relent on his River Don plan.

“Yeah,” Louis says. On the off chance him and Harry ever got to the meeting the best friends part of a long-distance flirtationship, Louis adds, “He’s cool though.”

“Bro, he’s a total dork,” Zayn says.

“What,” Louis says. It is always incredibly bad news if Zayn knows something Louis doesn’t.

“He’s on Twitter,” Zayn says. Harry has a locked account and Zayn still tweets using SMS.

Incredulous, Louis asks, “How are you even seeing his tweets?”

“Firstly,” Zayn says, “I have your phone. Secondly, he already added me back on my account.”

“You fuck!”

“He wants to know if you’re single,” Zayn adds with a smirk.

“Give me that,” Louis yells, making a heroic dive across the sofa which ends with Zayn’s face smushed into a cushion and Louis standing on the sofa with phone aloft, triumphant.

He finally takes a glance at Harry’s messages.

_“I’m bored .x”_

_“I think I’ve had too much wine at this gala :( .x”_

“You liar!” Louis exclaims. To punish Zayn for his betrayal, Louis takes a seat on Zayn’s lap and settles in to text Harry back.

After about five minutes of Louis faffing about on his phone, Zayn finally asks, “Will you ever let me get up?”

“Shut it Z, this is a _privilege_ ,” Louis replies, and sends Harry a kissy face emoji.

*

To Zayn’s never-ending bemusement, Louis goes and volunteers himself to canvas votes for Labour. Louis had never canvased when he was a skint uni student with free time in need of free food; this is how dire his infatuation has become. Louis tells Zayn that Aiden needs an extra person for a shift and Louis is only helping a mate out. As a bonus, he’s doing his civil— _civic_ —duty.

(In reality, Aiden only mentioned canvassing offhandedly to Louis. Louis was the one who’d immediately volunteered himself. Also, Louis may have texted Harry about it straightaway, and Harry may have snuck off from aide duty to give Louis a pep talk. No one’s intentions in politics were pure.)

Being outside at 9 am on a dreary Saturday has Louis regretting his rash decision.

“Good morning,” he chirrups, and a door promptly slams shut in front of his face.

“Well,” he says to the door.

“You get used to it,” Aiden says, while they walk to the next house. Aiden knocks on this door. “Good morning,” he greets cheerily. “We’re from the Labour Party.”

This interaction goes much better, and they even receive a few scones from the old lady who says she’s a longtime supporter.

As they walk back towards the road, Aiden says, “You didn’t have to drive to Dewsbury.”

Louis swallows the bit of scone in his mouth. “That was an option?”

Aiden shrugs. “I drove here all the way from Manc for your sorry arse. Hide your scone, we’re here.”

Louis stuffs his scone in his bag just as a woman opens the door. Aiden begins his speech. “Good morning, we’re from the Labour Party and we’re here to ask…”

When they’re walking again, Aiden says, “Thought canvassing’d be easier with someone you knew for your first time so I pulled a favour. You’re a bit to get used to.”

Louis scoffs. “Excuse you, I am very charming.”

“Not as charming as that Styles lad that’s got you into this,” Aiden says, nudging him.

“How the fuck,” Louis says.

“Zayn,” Aiden says.

Louis is going to strangle Zayn. Never mind strangulation, Operation River Don was back in action.

“You should know, though,” Aiden says, “he’s a rising star down in London. They’ve got him pegged for Brussels or America as soon as this election is over and Miliband is settled in.”

Louis met Harry less than two weeks ago; it isn’t exactly on the list of things he wants or needs to think about yet. Instead, he focuses on the other part of that statement. “So confident about winning, are we?”

“You have believe in it to sell it,” Aiden says, and Louis nearly groans. Louis nearly forgot how much he used to dislike Aiden when he was being particularly Big Name On Campus. Louis wonders for the numptieth time that morning why he signed up for this.

His phone chooses that moment to buzz with a message from Harry. He slips it out of his pocket to take a quick glance. _“Good morning! Best of luck canvassing! .xx”_

“Sell it,” Louis repeats with vigour.

“Yup,” Aiden says, with a small, knowing grin on his face. “Here we go.”

*

(2015, May.)

Labour loses. Harry is underplaying it, but Louis can tell, even via text, that he is devastated. Louis barely campaigned a tenth as much as Harry and sort of understands. Any loss, no matter what one tells themselves, feels personal. It’s in all the papers that Ed Miliband is coping with the loss by jetting off to Ibiza, and Louis is half a mind to recommend Harry do the same. In the meantime, he sends Harry photos of baby animals and baby siblings.

To his own surprise, Louis finds himself staying involved in the local Labour Party. He likes talking to people and gives him a constructive outlet for his politically induced outrage, even if meetings often veered into the ridiculous. And it gives him a way to relate to Harry, as Harry will often trade ridiculous stories from constituency surgeries.

He knows, however, Harry is looking for a new job. Harry’s said he wants a change of pace, but Louis can read between the lines and knows Harry feels burned by the loss in the spotlight. He doesn’t say this, but he worries that instead of pulling an Ibiza, Harry might run away forever.

*

(2017, May–June.)

When Doncaster Central comes up for by-election, several people suggest Louis runs to be the Labour candidate. He took it as a joke the first week, but then Harry sent him a Google doc of pros and cons and, well, Louis is weak. He signs up.

Louis charms everyone away and easily wins the selection.

Even though Doncaster Central been a Labour stronghold since inception, by-election means every weirdo is gunning for a seat, and Louis would sooner sacrifice himself before the altar of Tony Fuckface Blair before he lets George Galloway win anything.

A local boy in a safe seat, Louis wins handily. Zayn took time off with Louis to run most of Louis’ campaign, so when Louis gets elected he informs Zayn he’s getting dragged to Westminster with him.

In the meantime, Harry finally gets a job overseas. Unfortunately, this means Louis and Harry’s time in London never overlaps.

*

(2017, September.)

Louis’ first day as an official MP is strange. Unlike in Donny, no one recognizes him here, but he keeps expecting someone to.

To calm his nerves he pulls out his phone and types a quick message to Harry. _“7.30 and I’m awake :(”_ Only after he hits send does he realize he’s on EDGE and waits an anxious minute for the message to even leave his phone.

Harry’s response comes a few minutes later. _“Aww pumpkin. Excited for you! Say hi to Ed for me .x”_

 _“Don’t want to be a bother !”_ , Louis replies.

“ _Do it! I’ve told him about you and he’s a Doncaster MP too .x”_

 _“Should I bring anything ?”_ Louis can’t help but ask again, even though he’s already spent two hours with Harry on Skype last week learning the names and weakest points of special advisors and politicians alike. Harry even bequeathed Louis his Pret bar stash, saying that Louis never knows when Peter Mandelson might materialize.

 _“You’re perfect just the way you are! .x”_ Harry replies. He adds, _“Don’t worry, Ed’s really nice most of the time .x”_

 _“Reassuring .”_ Louis sends.

(In his anxiety, he eats one and a half Pret bars all by himself, until Zayn manages to manoeuvre him down to one of the Parliamentary bars for a drink.)

*

(2018—2022.)

Being an MP, Louis soon finds out, is boring. He spends a lot of his time on the train. Most complainants he receives during surgeries are a matter of research and forwarding to the right service. A few grannies come by his surgeries every weekend just to chat.

He learns the art of asking the right questions of the right people and volunteering for committees. With hard work, charm, and a sprinkle of Harry’s small influence, Louis is pegged as a rising star and moved into a minor Education post in the next cabinet reshuffle.

Sadiq Khan poaches Zayn for his staff, and a bumbling PPE graduate by the name of Liam Payne replaces him on Louis’ staff. (Zayn eventually runs for a parliamentary seat of his own.)

Louis keeps in constant contact with Harry. They haven’t settled on the relationship label, but there are tentative plans for when Harry decides to move back. When Harry lets him know he’s made a friend overseas, Louis is glad. The friend is a man by the name of Niall Horan, and somehow when Harry moves back to London, Niall moves across the ocean with him.

Harry moves in with Louis as soon as he arrives and takes a job at a law firm focused on humanitarian cases. The former raises several eyebrows among Labour HQ and Strangers’.

Niall ends up in the Labour policy unit, and he constantly drops by Louis’ office. “I can’t believe you adopted a child without telling me,” Louis jokes to Harry. “I thought we were going to marry before adopting any kids?”

“You were taking too long to propose,” Harry sniffs.

Louis knows they were joking, but he drags Zayn out that week to help him buy a ring.

“I cannot believe you,” Zayn mutters. “I am an MP now. I have my own schedule.”

“It’s entirely your fault I’m with Harry in the first place,” Louis says, and Zayn just gives him a long, ‘I am so done with your shit, Louis’ look.

“I am not helping you plan your proposal,” Zayn says.

(Zayn helps him plan his proposal.

Harry and Louis have a whirlwind marriage and, after a few years, adopt two children and a cat.)

*

(2024, March.)

It is Louis’ 495th day of being Shadow Education Secretary. Everyone can feel election fervour in the air. Louis likes fighting for the kids; he wants to fight for the kids. However, he hates the empty rhetoric and careless penny-pushing surrounding politics and _especially_ elections. If Louis is asked one more time about a “Cornerstone of Excellence”, as in, a literal stone, he’s going to dump the asker into the Thames. It is, after all, conveniently beside Brewers Garden.

Sometimes he wishes he’d have stayed a teacher.

*

(2024, June.)

Before Stella Creasey even announces her resignation, people have begun putting forward names to be the next Labour Party leader. MPs, party members, and the commentariat alike were weighing in. It’s a feeding frenzy. Louis gets constant texts asking him if he’s thrown his hat in, or urging him to do so. He even receives a text from Peter Mandelson himself, which is an incredibly strong portent that Louis really, really should not run.

More importantly, Louis knows Harry is ambivalent at best about it. He overhears Harry on the phone late one night. “I can’t be involved in a campaign,” Harry is saying. “I don’t want to hold Louis back, but I _can’t_.”

A pause, as the person on the other end speaks. Louis decides to head to the kitchen and make a cuppa for Harry, but it’s so quiet he can still hear every word Harry says.

“I know, Ed, but what they did to you. What they did to Justine and your kids. If they start following around Darcy and Jay around I’d lose my head.”

On the phone Ed Miliband says something, and Harry lets out a deep breath.

“I know. I know Louis would be an amazing leader. I know he has a real chance of winning.” Harry rubs the bridge of his nose. “I’m just worried. I can’t help but worry.”

A pause. “I’m not thinking too far ahead,” Harry says. Another, longer pause. “I ran halfway across the world last time,” he says with a self-deprecating laugh.

Louis sits down beside Harry on the couch, and nudges him with a cup. Harry gives a tired smile in thanks.

“Thanks Ed. I’ll let you get back to bed. G’night.”

Harry ends the call. “How much did you hear?”

Louis shrugs to mean _enough of it_. “I won’t run if you don’t think I should,” he says. “You know the kids always come first.”

“I believe in you,” Harry says. “I know you can do it. But I can’t help but wonder, what if we lose the election? I hated losing. I hated knowing that if we had won, so many things would have been better.”

“But think of what we could do if we win,” Louis says. “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

*

(2024, September.)

Louis throws his entire body into the couch and buries his head into the backrest. “H, remind me why I’m doing this again?”

He feels Harry sit down at the edge, and feels his cute arse shuffle into Louis’ feet. Harry pets a knee and Louis wiggles his toes in thanks. “Because you’re an amazing minister,” Harry says, “and you’ll be a _prime_ minister.”

“ _Noooo_ , stop,” Louis cries, reaching up to swat at Harry’s hands and nose and everything. Despite being the better part of thirty-four, Harry dissolves into giggles. “How am I married to you,” Louis says, burrowing his legs further under Harry.

Harry twists his body, wraps himself like a koala around Louis’ legs, and hooks his chin in the gap between Louis’ knees. All these years later, Harry still looks like a five year-old with a crush. Louis pitches his body up until his eyes are a few lashes from Harry, his mouth is a few breaths from Harry. “Love you,” he says.

Harry nuzzles into Louis’ neck. “Love you more.”

From her room, Darcy yells, “Stop that right now!”

Harry shakes her head. “She knows us too well.”

“You started it,” Louis says.

Darcy yells again. “I mean it!”

*

(Louis wins the leadership race. He builds a shadow cabinet team of transition members and his own team, including Zayn who replaces him in Shadow Education. Louis becomes known for fiery and viral-ready attacks during PMQs. His popularity builds steadily, but Louis’ team, especially Louis himself, are all too aware popularity may not translate on polling day.)

*

(2028, April.)

_“Wolfson has called an election for May 9. As you can see from our poll tracker, the latest polls show Labour leading the Conservatives by one point. However, many wonder if Tomlinson has enough experience to lead Labour to victory.”_

Louis has spent the past four years preparing for this moment, but it hits him suddenly. He could be prime minister in a month.

“Fuck,” he says, from his position at the centre of the Labour election war room. Then it hits him that _he’s in charge_ —nominally at least, Niall’s actually in charge of the manifesto—but he’s in charge and he needs to say something.

Louis stands up, Rovers mug in one hand, and marches into the chaos that is the Pit. All heads are already turned towards him, and fuck if that isn’t daunting.

“Comrades,” he says dramatically, in defiance of the sheet of A4 tacked to the wall that declares, in bold 72pt Arial, “DONT SAY COMRADE”. (Liam’s handwriting in red marker fills the bottom half of the sheet with an exasperated “@ TOMMO!!!!!”.) Louis gets an appreciative chorus of cheers and laughter from the audience. “We’ve been getting ready for this moment for five long years. We’ve watched Wolfson and her Tory cronies tear apart this country; tear apart our hospitals, our schools, our communities. We’re going to stop them. We’re going to win this.

“ _Fuck the Tories!_ ” he yells, holding his mug aloft.

*

Louis comes back to his office with a memo on his desk in Liam’s handwriting that reads, “Labour mugs only!”

He scrawls “IT’S A RED FLAG!” under it and puts it in Liam’s inbox. There’s a red flag with an expense bill attached on his desk the next day. If it ends up hanging from the ceiling the next morning, it’s not as if anyone can _actually_ blame Louis for doing it.

He is off across the country the next day. (Sadly the flag is taken down.)

*

Louis knows what they say about him. He’s too young, too untested, too gay. Liam is always trying to make him cover his tattoos, but there are enough aging ex-hipsters that tattoos aren’t as taboo as they used to be, even it makes him uncool with the kids.

There are gaffes—someone found out about the red flag. There are always gaffes. But Louis is charming enough, a people’s leader, they say; he has the right lines, thanks to his team; and somehow he manages to increase his polling lead. But all of them remember the polls leading into Ed Miliband’s loss, all those years ago, Louis’ first campaign.

Harry inexorably finds himself back in the midst of Labour campaigning, taking time off from his legal work after he finds himself distracted by politics anyway.

Sometimes Louis finds Harry poring over polls in the dark of night, and has to lead him back to bed. “You’re not running,” he’ll say. “We can’t worry about everything,” he’ll say.

*

(2028, May.)

The crowded room explodes into a thousand celebrations around them, but Louis sees nothing but the man that's been by his side all these years.

“We made it,” Harry says, soft and beautiful and sparkling like the centre of the universe. Louis’ eyes crinkle, and he smiles a private smile, one for Harry’s eyes only. Their foreheads meet, and he whispers into the mingling breath between them.

“We made it,” he whispers.


End file.
